Jeffreys and Wilton then separated, the former more astonished than ever at the bold and yet skilfully executed proceedings set on foot by his mysterious master.
CHAPTER XCV.
CLARENCE VILLIERS AND HIS AUNT.
The church of Saint Sepulchre on Snow Hill, was proclaiming the hour of nine on the following morning, when Clarence Villiers again entered the office of the governor of Newgate, and solicited permission to see Mrs. Torrens, representing the degree of relationship in which he stood with regard to that unhappy woman.
We have before stated that Mrs. Torrens had been placed in a ward where there were several other prisoners of her own sex; and the governor, animated by a proper feeling of delicacy, and supposing that the interview of relatives under such circumstances was likely to be of a nature which it would be cruel to submit to the gaze of curious strangers, immediately conducted Clarence into his own parlour, whither the guilty aunt was speedily conducted.
When they were alone together, Clarence endeavoured to find utterance for a few kind words; but his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth—and he burst into tears.
Mrs. Torrens threw herself into a chair, covered her face with her hands, and expressed the anguish of her soul in deep and convulsing moans.
"Oh! my dear aunt," exclaimed Clarence at length; "in what a frightful position do I find you! What terrible changes have a few short days effected!"
"Do not reproach me, Clarence—Oh! do not reproach me," said the wretched woman, extending her arms in an imploring manner towards him: "I am miserable enough as it is!"
"My God! I can well believe you," cried Villiers, speaking in a tone of profound commiseration, and forgetting for a moment the iniquity of which his aunt had been guilty: for she was frightfully altered—her plumpness was gone—her cheeks were thin and pale—and she even stooped, as if with premature old age.
"Oh! yes—I am indeed very, very miserable," she repeated, in a tone of intense bitterness, and clasping her hands together in the excess of her mental agony. "Such nights as I have passed since I first set foot in this dreadful place! No human tongue can tell the amount of wretchedness which I endure. In the day-time 'tis too horrible—oh! far too horrible to think of: but at night—when all is dark and silent, and when my very thoughts—my very ideas seem to spring into life and assume ghastly shapes——"